I'm playing around with Algorithm::Bucketizer to fill backup DVD-Rs, and I'd like to have something to spot patterns in the list of files I'm backing up (my MP3s). For example, I want to have a list of directory names like: 
U2 - October
U2 - Rattle and Hum
U2 - The Joshua Tree
Talking Heads - Sand In The Vaseline - Disc 1
Talking Heads - Sand In The Vaseline - Disc 2

[download]
and somehow give me a list of the similarly named groups (U2 - xxxxx, and Talking Heads - xxx). The criteria for 'similar' would be a group of masks/patterns of some kind (xx -xx - Disc n).

I haven't a clue where to start with this. I thought about something like Levenshtein Distance, but I'm really after a pattern matching type of solution. I get the feeling that there must be some heavy regexp magic that will do what I want in one line...

(I realise that there is some application-specific knowledge in this particular case, but I'm curious to know if there is a general solution).

In reply to finding groups in a text list by pattern? by howie

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